Learning a language? Don’t let these 3 ideas hold you back

Welcome to James from engVid. Brought to you by the ducks of Canada. Hi. James

from engVid. Welcome to an outdoor shoot. So, what's today's lesson going

to be on? Are your thoughts holding you back in learning English? A lot of times

people will say, you know: "Studying is hard", yada, yada, yada. Seinfeld

reference. But what the truth is, is it's their thoughts that are holding

them back more than the work that is necessary. So, I'm going to talk about

three things that's probably going through your head, and stopping you from

learning English. Not your teacher, not the work itself, but what you're

thinking. Those three things are going to be: Work, perfectionism, and have to.

I'm going to try and give you some tips on how you can eliminate those thoughts,

so you can learn English better. Okay? So, this is a learning process video,

and I'm teaching this to you because once we get better at processing our

learning, we can make learning English more effective, more efficient; and

ultimately, more fun. And what is fun is what we stick with. So, why don't we

start with the opposite of "fun", which is "work". Okay?

So, the first thing we're going to talk about in that... those three things is

work. A lot of people think learning English is work; and it is, quite

frankly. But let's look at the two aspects of why they consider it work.

They think it's going to take a long time, and they think it's hard. So, why

don't we look at those two? They think it's going to take a long time. Well,

yeah. Well, most things that we learn, from walking to riding a bicycle, take

time. And thinking long time — well, that's an odd thing, actually. When we

learn something, things seem to take a long time at the beginning, when you're

first learning because there's so many things to learn. Most of you who are

above the age of 16, who drive a car, will know how complicated it was because

you have to learn the brake, to look over your shoulder, check this, check

that, check... it took a long time until you got comfortable. And then you

started being able to do things, like drinking McDonald's while driving with

your foot and eating your burger. You learned other skills, because after that

initial or first period of learning — which takes a long time — went by, it

was anything else you learned came faster. Right? This is also what happens

with English. You're learning a brand new language — excuse me — but it's not

just the language you're learning. No. You're learning how to avoid trains. GO

Transit. Anyway. So, you're learning a new way of thinking, so your brain has

to adjust to that. That takes time. As your brain adjusts to it, it's like

walking — it will get better. Do you remember as a child? It took a long time

to walk. Ask your parents. You didn't walk in a day; it took months. But then

after that, they were like: "Get back here!" because you were running. And

that didn't take you so long. The same is going to happen with English. Once

you master the basics, you can use those basics to learn other things; instead of

having to learn everything from the beginning, and that's when the speed

kicks in.

So, we talked about long. Okay? Let's talk about hard. Well, everything's hard

at the beginning. But you know the funny thing is? When your attitude is

different, everything changes. When we talk about something being hard, we say,

you know... "It's difficult", what have you. But think about when you first

learned to play a video game. It was hard. You didn't consider it hard, but

it is. If you're playing, moving this, moving that, looking at the screen,

trying to coordinate the two — that's very hard. But your attitude was you

wanted to learn it; it was interesting to you. Right? If you can get that mind

switch in your head, and realize: "It's not hard; it's new". If you're trying to

build new muscle... you see people in the gym and they're sweating, and

they're... but they love it. You go: "Why?" It's hard work, but it's

interesting to them, so it cause... causes them to want to do it. The same

thing will happen with your language learning. Once you get to that skill...

Remember we talked about once you get past the basics; the initial? Once you

get past that, you get to a situation or a stage in which you can actually start

using your information. It becomes less hard because you're not like: "I don't

know anything." You're like: "I can use this word and this word, and that helps

me understand that." Cool? So, we've talked about one of three things.

English is work, and I've said: You're correct; it is work because it's long

and hard. But when we talked about it being long, know that it's only long at

the beginning and you have to get past that initial stage, and then it will go

faster. You'll be learning more English more rapidly, more every more... more

and more every day. Okay? That will help you get past that; it won't seem as

long.

The other thing is this: It's about time. You're going to be alive anyway.

What else are you going to do? Just sit there and go: "It's going to take me two

years"? Well, you're going to be alive for two years. Practice. That's the

other thing about: You got to keep that in mind. It's long, but you're going to

be alive, so just study. Right? You're gonna... I had a yoga teacher who said

that; most brilliant thing. It took him, like... to do this one pose: "Wah" — it

took him three years. And we're like: "That's just crazy." He's like: "Well,

what else was I gonna do? I was alive, so I did it. Now I can do it." Same for

your English. When we talk about being hard, understand that everything's hard

at the beginning, but your mindset changes how it is to you. I don't really

play video games, so they're just hard for me. But I watch other guys play, and

they make it seem like they're in their sleep; they're just playing and they're

laughing the whole time. I don't know how they do it. That's a mind... that's

just switching your mind to going: "It's going to be hard now; it will be easier

later." And you can go to the reference of walking, playing video games driving

a car — and you'll quickly realize that's with everything. Anything worth

doing will be hard at the beginning, but much easier later. I wish my accountant

told me this about saving money, and I'd be in a better position. Anyway. Let's

go to the next branch. Okay?

So, we worked on hard. What was the other one I told you? We had:

Perfectionism and have to. Well, along with being work is the idea of "have

to". "I have to study. I have to do it from my job. I have to do it for my

school. I have to do it because I met that cute girl and I want to speak..." I

mean, let's go back to job and let's go back to school. "I have to". That

attitude of saying: "I have to do something" makes it difficult. "I have

to clean my house. I have to go to work." Have you ever... ever seen anyone

smile who has to go to work, or has to clean their house? If we just switch

that from: "have to" to: "I get to" — everything changes. And I'll tell you

why you should think you get to. Quite frankly, you feel you have to do it. And

I'm going to let you know a little secret: Learning is a privilege, my

friend. You may not like me saying it, and you might think: Oh, I'm an elitist

— that's a person who thinks: "Oh, yes. Harvard and Stanford." No. It's a

privilege. There are people out there... when I was a little kid, my parents

would say: "There are starving children in Africa." And I'd go: "Mom, there's

starving kids down the street. Ah, look, those guys have no food." But my point

is this: Not everyone gets to learn, and a lot of people want to. So, the fact

that... forget me on this video helping, but the fact that you get the

opportunity to learn something to better yourself — that's a privilege. There are

people — and I can tell you right now, if you go into some factories — where

they do the same job for 30 years. The exact same thing. Press button number

one for the rest of their lives. They would love the opportunity to be able to

sit down and learn something new. Okay? And there are people out there who know

they can change their lives, but they don't have access. You get to learn.

Remember that. Now, what's the second part of "have to" and "get to"? Well, we

talk about you get the privilege of it. And I want to also say that's the

privilege of learning, but you get to... you get the opportunity to better

yourself. Right? You get to expand your mind and your horizons; you get to learn

something that's going to help you get a better job, travel, meet new people.

That's kind of cool. Keep that in mind when you're like: "English hard;

difficult". And, once again, this is the thought process. Just switch it from:

"have to" to: "I get to" and then you stock down... you think of all the

things you want to do, and you're gonna be quite surprised.

Now, I had a funny intro with the ducks. So, I forgot to do my test retest. And

what... my test retest was supposed to be this — I'm going to tell you right

now. So, stop for a second. Close your eyes. Yeah. Stay there. Close your eyes

and listen to me. What you need to do is you need to think of the top ten things

you'd like to do. You got that? Is English in the top ten? No. If it's not,

let's go back to what I just talked about, and we're gonna try and get that

in that list. And we might have to do this a couple of times, but eventually

we want to get in that list because if it's in the top ten things you like to

do — pretty soon, my friend, you're gonna be a master at this language. So,

remember what we talked about. It's work. Right? We talked about the

thoughts about work. What did we say about work? It's long and it's hard, and

we talked about how to change those thoughts. Yes? Now, we talked about

"have to", instead of getting... you got the privilege and you "get to" do

something. Let's talk about the third one. All right? So, I hope you did a

little, quick review because if you've taken a second... and I'll give it to

you. Maybe it's moving up that list right now in your head because you're

thinking: "Yeah, I get lucky. It's a privilege. I should like to be able to

do this." Anyway.

Number three is the perfectionist in you and me. Perfectionist — 100%; being

perfect. It is the killer of all hopes and dreams. I have a good friend.

Actually, yeah. A guy I actually did this website with. And for a long time,

he wanted to do it. And I remember him turning to me one day and said: "I want

to do it. I want to do it." And one day he said: "I don't care if I put out the

worst quality; I just got to do it. Like, I got to get started, and then I

can improve. Because if I get my perfect dream, it'll never happen." Well, thanks

to that man, I'm standing in front of you right now. Right? And the same thing

happened to me. I thought I could never teach on camera. And it's like: Please

do... please don't go back to the first videos. You might go: "Oh, my god. He's

got hair? What is that thing on the board behind him?" And it's like: Well,

we've decided it doesn't... today's the day; not next year. When you go into the

perfectionist mode, it stops a lot of people of studying because it's not the

right time, it's not the right atmosphere, it's not the right books —

they don't have the right teacher; it's got to be perfect. It's never going to

be perfect. And that thought is going to stop you from starting. Okay? You want

to avoid that.

Another thing you want to avoid is... and I say this because I... I had many

students and they would... they would: "Oh, teacher I want to... I want to have

a perfect English accent; I don't want to sound like that." I'm like: "Are you

crazy?" The sexiest thing in the world is someone who speaks another language,

but they speak our language perfectly with an accent. And you might go: "Oh,

hey. What about, you know... people from India or people from China?" Like: Are

you...? They sound amazing. They sound incredibly educated. Because it's just

this little something... masala, you might say, that... that gives a little

bit of a taste to it. But it's perfect pronunciation and it's like a unique

voice. And I don't care if you speak Spanish, I don't care if you speak

Hindi, I don't care if you speak Mandarin, I don't care if you speak

Romanian — it's the same. When you have that little... that little tick on the

end, it's beautiful to hear because it makes me want to get to know you better.

It's your unique voice. When you go for this perfectionism, that: "I want to

sound like a New York reporter from the 1950s. You know what I'm saying? Jeez."

I mean, they put that on; that doesn't exist. They've even got proper English.

I don't know what it's called — something English and it's like that...

the BBC speaks when they speak to you. This is the English that has gone across

all of England, even though nobody sounds like that. They sound more like

this, what I'm saying. They all sound like this. Unique voices. Get over this

perfectionist crap. Sorry, bad language. YouTube, don't punish me — YouTube gods.

Your unique voice is important. And once you get past this idea of being a

perfectionist, you can actually have your unique voice and bring something to

us. Everything you see in the world was created from a unique voice from some

individual; from a computer to the car — there is no thing that we all went from.

Everyone created their own thing, and we get to enjoy the world we have because

of it. So, if you take the idea of "perfectionism", if you take the idea:

"it's work", if you take the idea: "I have to", and you just switch these

things around — I promise you, you are going to have a different experience

learning English. You're going to actually...

And here's where I'm going to do my test retest. I'm gonna step out for a second

and I want you to take a second to two now once again, and I want you to go

through that list we talked about, and see if English has made that top ten.

All right? Take a second. Okay. Has it moved up? Maybe yes; maybe no? Okay, so

I got something for you. I'm gonna give you two tips to help you. Two tips. If

it didn't move up, by now it should have because this is like your homework. Tip

number one — I'm gonna say it and you're gonna have to do it — you need to write

out 100 reasons to learn English. 100. One. I have a friend who hates when I do

that. They hate it. But 100 reasons. You know why? Because that's gonna make you

think about it. You're gonna think. After 25, you're gonna have it down. 30

— pretty good. 40 — not bad. 50 — you're going to start calling me names. 60 —

don't talk about my mother like that. Okay? We're gonna have problems. By the

time you get to 100, you're gonna start convincing that little brain of yours:

There's many reasons why you want to do this. Okay? Tip number two. I'm a comic

book reader, and most of you guys who stuck with me for years would know this.

And Marvel has now put it on Disney channel, so I'm not stealing it. I knew

this from, like, the 19-... You don't need to know how old I am. "He said

1900s. How old is that guy?" That's right. Before time; me and Jesus. I want

you to do: What if? What if you got good at English? What if your English got you

a new job? What if English got you some new friends? What if you got a new life

partner? What if...? What if it all worked out? And go to the furthest

region you can. Like, what if I got that job, and that job got me to meet, like,

the presidents of the world and I was able to stop global... global warming

and get rid of... What if? Just... just go with it; have fun with it. And you're

going to think: It all starts from this simple, little thing of: "I just got to

practice English a little bit. Just gotta practice a little bit."

Changing your thoughts changes your world. And by the way, the same thing

with language. When you learn to speak another language, you change your world.

Now, I want to end this particular lesson with a quote from Woody Allen.

He's a producer, and a director, and an actor. And he said: "What if nothing is

real, and we're all in somebody's dream?" Well, my friend, this is your

dream. Make it reality. And that's... before I go... I already gave your

homework, but I want you to make sure you go to www.eng as an English, vid as

in video.com. And go check out the other lessons we have there. We have other

learning process videos, like this one; we also have grammar, conversation,

listening, you know it. You name it. And some really great teachers. Emma,

Adam... Am I forgetting anyone? Because I know one of yous will go: "Why didn't

you say me, James?" Alex. I just remembered you. Listen, have a great

day; and I look forward to seeing you guys again. Go see if there's some more

ducks.

I teach English as a profession.